Students were asked numerous times—leading up to the annual semester jail trip with Mr. Inge—isn’t it dangerous for students to be stuck in a jail with inmates? No, the students weren’t stuck in jail with the inmates: the inmates were stuck in the jail with Mr. Inge.

Mr. Greg Inge’s Law and Order (not the TV show) class goes on a field trip to the Beaver County Jail every semester, and January 10 was last semester’s opportunity to visit the local lockup.

I was part of the class last semester and besides watching 12 Angry Men, listening to classic Mr. Inge stories, and deciding who to throw off of a boat, I genuinely learned some valuable lessons about the law. Most importantly, the class and especially the field trip reinforced my desire to never go to jail.

After first period ended, the Law and Order students met by the back parking lot exit where a buss would take them to the jail located in West Aliquippa.

As we approached I could just barley make out the grey building out of the fog then slowly but surely I could see the building name: Beaver County Jail.

Mr. Inge told the class that we could either leave our belongings (keys, jackets, wallets) on the bus or in the jail’s main office. I decided to leave my stuff on the bus because nothing would surely happen, right?

After visiting the jail numerous times over the years teaching Law and Order, Mr. Inge seemed to be admitted almost instantly whenever he pressed the entrance buzzer.

Everyone gathered inside—yes, even the bus driver—and we were introduced to one of the guard captains who would be our guide for the tour.

“Well I probably shouldn’t let you guys have your jackets on but it does get cold in there so it’s fine,” said the captain which made me a little concerned since I had on my jacket.

Our first stop on the tour was the booking and warrant room where, you guessed it, people who get incarcerated are booked into the system and where the jail receives warrants from local judges.

Compared to the upcoming rooms that we were about to see, booking was relatively tame.

Then came the security rooms with cameras plastered in almost every inch of the jail. What made me begin to feel really paranoid was the fact these cameras could see with fine detail from incredibly far distances. I’m not talking about from one room to the another, I’m talking about how you could see the other side of the Ohio River and into someone’s house levels of detail. There were also numerous signals and alarms if someone was buzzing into a door or if an incident occurred in a different part of the facility.

The captain then took us to the self-explanatory suicide watch room which admittedly was disturbing (students may or may not have seen an occupied room with a cracked windowed).

Leading straight from the suicide watch room was the searching room where any newly incarcerated persons are searched for weapons or illegal substances.

Much of time from then on was exploring the facility and learning how everything operates. The captain showed us the kitchen where we actually saw inmates cooking for the day and next door was the laundry room which only women could work in (sexist?).

The more we toured, the more the inmates noticed that a group of high schoolers were strolling through the jail and they started to get coy. The women in the laundry room actually told us, “yeah, you get on out” of the laundry room.

In the hallways were inmates meticulously cleaning the walls and floors. Beaver County Jail was surprisingly cleaner than I expected probably due to the fact that too many illnesses were spreading years prior so the staff decided to opt for a change.

Other rooms like the paramedic offices and the “gymnasium” showed how the inmates received their daily doses of medicine plus a rubber-floored court.

Some non-violent inmates have the opportunity to work outside of the jail for work release; however, the captain told us that inmates tend to smuggle contraband (like cigarettes) back inside.

For some odd reason, the first pod area of inmates that we saw were the worst ones in the facility. All of the inmates in the pod wore red jumpsuits and looked down upon us as we stared back uncomfortably like tourists at a zoo.

The captain told us one particular inmate who was standing right at the crack of the door to the pod had “ripped off the door of a locker and shoved it down his pants.”

I’m not entirely sure how he could use a ripped off locker door to escape, but said inmate actually started talking to another guard proclaiming that he was “going to get out” and asked “are you guys trying to scare em’ straight?”

Not all inmates were, unfortunately, adults. One inmate whom we saw was a boy, and if I had to guess, probably in tenth grade. A Hopewell teacher actually visits and teaches the inmate so he doesn’t entirely miss out on his chance to earn a diploma. Other older inmates were similarly being taught by volunteers.

The tour came to a close when the captain showed us examples of the creative ways that the guards had of countering the inmates who resist. Such tools included: a flashing shield, a shield with dozens of speakers that made one of the loudest noises I have ever heard, a stun gun, riot shields, and more creative tools.

In the same room the captain showed us what contraband the inmates had crafted over the years. There were crack pipes, books with holes cut into them, socks with jars of peanut butter wedged inside, “hoodopoly”—an inmate-made version of Monopoly, pottery, and drawings of other inmates’ families.

The Beaver County Jail was intimidating—and it’s considered one of the nicer jails in the area. I then swore to myself that I would never end up in jail as the group had lunch with Mr. Inge at Mario’s before safely returning to school.